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Slow
down, are your kids moving too fast?
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Overscheduling
can lead to cranky, tired kids
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Soccer moms (and dads) got plenty of press in recent
presidential elections as a growing segment of the population
to be courted by politicians. Lately, however, these
parents are getting attention for what they do: chauffeuring
their kids to a well-scheduled series of after-school
activities that include not only soccer practices and
games, but also scout meetings, dance and piano lessons,
and classes in everything from drama to gymnastics.
This growth of extracurricular activities among school-age
children, and parents who sometimes micromanage childhood
is a phenomenon that’s spawned episodes on daytime
talk shows like “Dr. Phil,” and led to books
with such titles as “Hyper-Parenting: Are you
Hurting Your Child by Trying too Hard?”
Schedules, of course, are a part of life — especially
for children.
What parent doesn’t learn early on the benefits
of giving kids a set bedtime, regular family meal times,
and an hour or so to “decompress” after
school each day? So where’s the harm in adding
Little League practice and a weekly art class to the
agenda?
Today’s kids move at
faster pace
But the schedules — and the pace of life itself
— are faster these days. Children feel it as keenly
as adults, even in school. Reading is now being mastered
by kindergartners instead of first-graders.
Seventh-graders are studying advanced math classes that
were once taught in high school.
“Concepts are introduced early on at an age-appropriate
level and spiral throughout the years of education in
math, reading, etc.,” said Cheryl Jaeger, principal
of Fond du Lac Area Catholic Education System’s
(FACES) intermediate and middle school.
Jaeger, who e-mailed her responses to a reporter’s
questions, said curriculum changes are due in part to
children’s readiness at an earlier age. Other
factors, such as the federal government’s “No
Child Left Behind” legislation, “force us
to begin (teaching subjects) as early as 3 years of
age,” she noted.
“With the age of technology, our society encourages
our students to move at a faster pace. This message
does influence our children today to grow up a bit faster.”
In her 16 years as a teacher and principal, Jaeger has
seen an increase in the number of elementary school
students participating in recreational and extra-curricular
activities. By itself, such involvement isn’t
bad, she believes.
“The benefits of participating in these events
are that it gives the students a sense of enjoyment
of the activity they like, a feeling of self-confidence
and self-worth, and it increases their self-esteem.
It also gives them a feeling that they have accomplished
something they enjoy doing,” Jaeger said.
Extra-curriculars teach life
lessons
John Grych, an associate psychology professor at Marquette
University who specializes in parenting issues, believes
that extra-curricular activities often teach children
both skills and life lessons.
“Regularity and predictability are helpful for
children, especially young children. Regularity promotes
a sense of control and security and seems to be reassuring
to most kids,” Grych said, in an e-mail interview
with the Catholic Herald. “Similarly, there is
something to be gained from participation in structured
activities. Children can learn how to work with others,
follow rules and guidelines in order to reach goals,
and develop self-discipline and self-control.”
Grych said childhood today is viewed both as its own
phase and as an extended training period for adulthood.
“We begin to socialize children informally from
birth on, trying to produce the kinds of characteristics
that we think will make good, healthy, and responsible
adults. The process becomes more formal when they go
to school,” he said.
Many professionals who work with children say well-intentioned
parents encourage their kids in activities, hoping their
participation will help turn children into successful,
well-rounded adults. Yet there’s a concern that
sometimes parents take control, pushing participation
in a sports team or music lessons, even when their kids
have no interest in football or playing the trumpet.
Wanting to please mom or dad, or even thinking they
have no say in the matter, many children go along with
the decision, and are miserable.
“Younger children tend to assume that their parents
are the final word on such things,” Grych said.
“Parents certainly should take their children’s
wishes into consideration when deciding what kinds of
structured activities to take part in. That may not
mean always letting them make the final decision, but
finding out about their interest in, and later, enjoyment
of, particular activities.”
Overscheduling creates cranky
kids
Even when the activities are ones in which kids themselves
express an interest, however, professionals worry about
afternoons, evenings and weekends crammed with classes,
meets and recitals. Such overscheduling can leave children
feeling cranky, tired and stressed.
“A few of the downfalls of participating in too
many events are that it affects (children’s) schoolwork,
family quality time, and rest,” Jaeger said.
“I think that there is a danger when most of children’s
time is scheduled. Having to conform to expectations
and standards can be tiring and could lead to tension
and anxiety if it takes up too much of their day,”
Grych said. “School presents them with a structured
environment most of the day, and having some unstructured
time allows them the opportunity to relax and choose
their own activities and their own pace. Children, like
adults, like some ‘down time’ in which little
is demanded of them. Although it may not be evidence
of a special developmental purpose for unstructured
time, the fact that children (and adults) seek it out
on their own suggest that it has value.”
Unstructured free time is
important
Unstructured free time is considered important enough
to be included in most elementary schools. At FACES,
for instance, elementary students in kindergarten through
second grade have morning, lunch and afternoon recess;
third- through fifth-graders have morning and lunch
recess.
“We believe that it is important for elementary
students to have recess time, which allows for kinesthetic
learning and social interaction,” Jaeger said.
“Unstructured play for elementary children is
very important. It allows for the children to explore
for new ideas or thoughts. It helps them to be creative
thinkers. Unstructured play encourages them (to be)
more adventurous to experiment (with) new things. It
also allows for children to think outside of the box.”
“Books have been written about the value of play,”
Grych said. “Some of the benefits are that it
encourages children to use and expand their imagination,
to attain a sense of mastery and control, to ‘try
out’ various roles and behaviors in a safe context,
and, of course, it provides a sense of pleasure and
joy.”
Letting kids simply play by themselves in the backyard
isn’t as common these days, for reasons ranging
from two working parents with little free time to worries
about strangers lurking in the neighborhood.
Today’s parents seem to feel children are safer
and even more challenged in some type of group activity.
Playgrounds added order
to lives
Actually, creating structured, organized recreation
for children isn’t a new concept, but rather grew
out of early 20th-century American political and reform
movements, said James Marten, a Marquette history professor
who teaches courses on the history of childhood.
“One of the child-centered priorities (Americans)
had then, in addition to health, was playgrounds,”
he said. “And they didn’t mean just having
more swing sets, they meant a supervised playground
with adults there and games and organized activities.”
Early reformers originally designed such playgrounds
for the benefit of immigrant children who often lived
in squalid poverty, Marten said.
The hope was that by putting some order into these children’s
lives in the form of healthy activities, they would
grow up into orderly people.
The popular supervised playgrounds offered another practical
feature as well.
“City playgrounds replaced playing in streets,
where hundreds of children were killed in car accidents
and before that in train accidents every year,”
Marten said. “So you’d get them off the
streets into playgrounds, where they’d be safer.
And to me, when I hear structure, I think of safety.
It’s not physical, but sort of mental. It’s
to bring order to lives.
Activities switch off TV
set
“Even today, we’re still interested in getting
kids active. I think having after-school activities
for a first-, second-, third- or fourth-grader isn’t
about grooming them for future success; it’s to
keep them busy and interested and away from the television.”
Marten points to his son, a sixth-grader, who is involved
in more after-school activities, including sports, than
his daughter, a college sophomore, ever was.
Although flexible work schedules for both Marten and
his wife allow them to be home with their son, he said
they still schedule activities for him in summer when
he’s away from the routine of school. Because
his son goes to an all-city rather than a neighborhood
school, his friends don’t live nearby, Marten
said.
“I’ve heard this from a lot of parents,
that (extracurricular activities) get (kids) away from
the Game Cube and TV,” Marten said. “I mean,
we have limits for that with our son, but what do you
tell him to do? If kids can’t be carted around
a lot to friends’ houses or find something to
do outside the house, what are they going to do in the
house? So part of getting kids involved in activities,
I guess, is making them into more useful people in our
minds, but as parents, we also find activities that
get them away from the TV screen.”
Marten remembered his own parents worrying about him
spending hours in front of the television, too, although
he participated in sports during the school year and
worked most of his teenage summers.
Yet even before the advent of television, there was
still parental conflict, Marten said. “In the
19th century, parents really worried about reading too
much — they weren’t against reading, but
rather a child lying in his bed reading instead of going
out and doing something. So there’s always been
a struggle between what parents want kids to do and
what kids do.”
Well-developed child has caring,
control
The answer for a healthy, well-developed child may lie
somewhere between letting her zone out in front of a
PlayStation and scheduling so many activities that she
needs a day planner to maneuver through the week.
“There’s ample research that shows that
children do best when they experience warmth and caring
and firm control from their parents — at least
in Western cultures like the United States,” Grych
said. “Children need to be supported and encouraged
as they take on new challenges. They need to know that
they are loved, but that not all behavior is acceptable
and that they need to be responsible for their choices.
And parents should try to provide balance for their
kids: between independence and relatedness, work and
play, structured and unstructured times, talking and
listening.” |
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